Mrs. Russell Sage, Mrs. Henry M. Sanders, Mrs. Edward Lauterbach, Mrs. Runkle, and some liberal clergymen did their uttermost to secure the insertion of the amendment in the proposed new constitution, but the Committee on Suffrage of the Constitutional Convention refused even to submit the proposed amendment to a vote of the people, though half a million of our most intelligent and respectable citizens had signed the petition requesting them to do so.  Joseph H. Choate and Elihu Root did their uttermost to defeat the amendment, and succeeded.

I spent the summer of 1894 with my son Gerrit, in his home at Thomaston, Long Island.  Balzac’s novels, and the “Life of Thomas Paine” by Moncure D. Conway, with the monthly magazines and daily papers, were my mental pabulum.  My daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, returned from England in September, 1894, having had a pleasant visit with her sister in Basingstoke.  In December Miss Anthony came, and we wrote the woman suffrage article for the new edition of Johnson’s Cyclopedia.

On March 3, 1895, Lady Somerset and Miss Frances Willard, on the eve of their departure for England, called to see me.  We discussed my project of a “Woman’s Bible.”  They consented to join a revising committee, but before the committee was organized they withdrew their names, fearing the work would be too radical.  I especially desired to have the opinions of women from all sects, but those belonging to the orthodox churches declined to join the committee or express their views.  Perhaps they feared their faith might be disturbed by the strong light of investigation.  Some half dozen members of the Revising Committee began with me to write “Comments on the Pentateuch.”

The chief thought revolving in my mind during the years of 1894 and 1895 had been “The Woman’s Bible.”  In talking with friends I began to feel that I might realize my long-cherished plan.  Accordingly, I began to read the commentators on the Bible and was surprised to see how little they had to say about the greatest factor in civilization, the mother of the race, and that little by no means complimentary.  The more I read, the more keenly I felt the importance of convincing women that the Hebrew mythology had no special claim to a higher origin than that of the Greeks, being far less attractive in style and less refined in sentiment.  Its objectionable features would long ago have been apparent had they not been glossed over with a faith in their divine inspiration.  For several months I devoted all my time to Biblical criticism and ecclesiastical history, and found no explanation for the degraded status of women under all religions, and in all the so-called “Holy Books.”